When it comes to Christmas time, it can be all to easy to get caught up in the motions of spend, spend, spend and buy, buy, buy. It is inevitable that there will be costs of some kind involved in preparing for, and celebrating, this special time of year with family and friends but that doesn’t mean that you need to break the bank in the process.
Amongst the frenzied preparations, it is important to remember that the amount of dollars that you spend at Christmas time is not necessarily related to how special the celebrations are, how precious the memories are that are made, and the long-lasting and treasured traditions that are carried out.
We believe that creating a memorable Christmas for your family is about magical experiences and time spent together and not how much money you spent. In other words, an expensive Christmas doesn’t necessarily always equal a great Christmas.
So, with that approach in mind, here are some of our favourite ideas for how you can create many magical Christmas memories without sending yourself broke.
The Magic of Santa
The story of the jolly man in the red suit is a huge part of the magic of Christmas, especially for the children. Thankfully, there is no membership fee to subscribe to the official Santa fan club. All it really takes is a big dose of imagination and a lot of great story telling.
It costs nothing to visit Santa and his helpers at the local shopping centre to see the man himself and have a friendly chat. This experience is perhaps one of the best ways to make special Christmas memories with your family and to keep the magic of the season alive.
Another great way to get your children involved in the magic of Santa is to have them write and send a letter to Santa. Australia Post has a beautiful service where kids can post a letter to Santa and receive a reply too. And there are many electronic services that do the same. All it requires is some time spent with your kids to compose and send their letter.
While these activities themselves don’t require any financial investment, if you are on a particularly tight budget, you might be worried that encouraging children to write and communicate with Santa could raise their hopes for expensive gifts that Santa may not be able to deliver on. If this is the case, or in order to shift the focus from “possessions” and the “I want” mentality, it could be worth considering how you approach the all-important Santa experience. You can explain that Santa is not just about delivering endless amounts of gifts, that the real spirit of Christmas is about giving and remembering those less fortunate and suggest that your children include Christmas wishes that benefit others and Santa will play his part in those too.
Family, family, family time
There is nothing that can substitute for precious memories made with family and loved ones. No matter how many expensive gifts are piled under the tree, how lavish the Christmas Day meal or how extravagant the decoration, none of those things can come close to the special times spent together and experiences shared.
Even with the best intentions, you certainly can’t fabricate genuine feelings and emotions, or orchestrate things to eventuate in the way that you had hoped, but by creating as many opportunities as possible for your family to spend time together at this magical time of the year, then soon enough some special memories will be made and perhaps even some traditions will be created that will hold a special place in your Christmas preparations for many years to come.
Some great, and no or low cost, activities to get the whole family involved in the magic of Christmas include:
- Visiting the local Christmas lights displays – lock in a date and make sure that everyone can be there. The shared time where you are all out of the house and not distracted by electronics or domestic duties is a good, healthy dose of family love for all.
- Christmas craft – choose a Christmas craft activity that is suitable for the ages and interests of your children and set aside some time to get crafty together. You might make some Christmas decorations for your home, or gifts for their friends at school or thank you cards for their teachers. Not only have you spent some quality time together but you’ve created something special that can be used as well.
- Christmas baking – kids love helping in the kitchen, and it’s especially enticing when it’s got a Christmas theme. Cook up some delicious treats together and then enjoy sampling them too! You can then use your combined Christmas cooking efforts at your Christmas celebration, or maybe take them to an end-of-year event that you are attending together.
- Decorating the Christmas tree together – there is something very special about the experience of decorating the Christmas tree together. It is such an warm, beautiful feeling to spend the afternoon or evening together arranging beautiful and treasured decorations and then sitting back to admire the results of your combined efforts.
- Get in the mood with Christmas music – there are so many ways to access a wide range of music these days that it is simple to crank up a collection of your favourite Christmas tunes and dance and sing until your exhausted. Whether it’s kids Christmas songs on YouTube, old records on the turntable or anything in between, Christmas music sure does set the scene for many magical Christmas memories. Use Christmas music in the background as you craft or bake or decorate the tree, or use it as a Christmas activity all on it’s own.
The gift of time, and the precious gift of family and loved ones to spend that time with, is the single most important thing this busy life that we all lead. Especially at Christmas time, it is timely to remember just how lucky we are and to do all that we can to embrace the magic of Christmas with those around us.